Things We Think About Games

This thin book is a mix of thoughts not only about designing games (“If a rule is optional, give it a name”), but playing them (“Take your turn, already”). Thin in word count (some pages consist only of a single sentence) but dense in information. I don’t agree with everything, but it often made me think.

I definitely recommend Things We Think About Games for any designer (of either computer or physical games).

iTunes Genius

New in iTunes 8.0 is a “Genius” feature that’s supposed to show music related to a particular track.

Of course, anything called “Genius” had better be smart. And this isn’t. One search turned up songs I can’t buy. A number of cover versions don’t list the original (e.g. Gnarls Barkley’s version of “Gone Daddy Gone” doesn’t link you to the original by Violent Femmes).

However, I really like this status message that I got during the initial process.

Overall, Genius seems to do a better job than the “you may also like” feature that used to be on the iTunes store (in my case, I’m sure that’s because it knows about all the music I bought from eMusic). I might even buy some music from its recommendations!

Microsoft Does Learn

Apparently the new Zune will finally be able to tell time: “Additional updates to the software will add a clock.” You’d think this critical feature would have been in earlier Zunes, but maybe nobody at Microsoft waits for a bus while listening to music. I must have pulled out my iPod several times a week to see how late the bus was.

I haven’t kept track, but I think this may actually be the third release, traditionally when Microsoft finally gets it.

Rest Stop WiFi

What’s with the free WiFi on Interstate 90 in Washington? I must have stopped at 4 different rest stops over the last couple days. Each had a sign saying there would be WiFi. None of them actually had any. (I saw a guy get off his motorcycle and open a laptop; I figure he was looking too.)

As I recall, the situation was the same on I-5 back in December.

MacBook Air Update

Looks like Apple’s MacBook Air Update does solve the issue where a core would drop out, particularly during Time Machine backups. (This didn’t happen when the machine was new, so I suspect it’s partly heat-related — its onset coincided with warmer weather.)

Security Update Broke FogBugz

[Warning: highly technical post, partly so I can find this again if need be.]

I just installed the latest security update (2008-005) on Mac OS X 10.5, and while Fogbugz is accessible, it doesn’t seem like the maintenance service is running. (I can manually run the heartbeat to process e-mail.)

% sudo ./fogbugzmaintd start

FogBugz Maintenance Service started

% ps -A | grep fog

  124 ??         1:06.48 mono /Library/WebServer/fogbugz/Accessories/SearchTool.exe -server /Library/WebServer/fogbugz/Accessories/search.socket

 8546 ttys001    0:00.00 grep fog

% ps -A | grep php

 8549 ttys001    0:00.00 grep php

I guess it's likely that there’s a different PHP or something...

% which php

/usr/bin/php

% php --version

PHP 5.2.6 (cli) (built: Jul 15 2008 12:18:21) 

Copyright (c) 1997-2008 The PHP Group

Zend Engine v2.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2008 Zend Technologies

I changed a line in fogbugzmaintd to read

    (cd ${PREFIX}/Accessories; nohup /opt/local/bin/php -d max_execution_time=0 -d allow_call_time_pass_reference=Yes ./fogbugzmaintd.php >/dev/null &)

and it seems fine.

David Dunham in History

Apparently I have a famous namesake, whom Dunham Place in Brooklyn is named for. (Thanks to Ian Lynch Smith for the pointer.)